Laurie R. King

In the Company of Sherlock Holmes brings together a mix of people you never thought you’d see writing Sherlock Holmes stories. Such as… Laurie R. King and Michael Connelly:

Introduction by Laurie R. King

Variations on the theme of Holmes have been played ever since the man first saw print. Some have been whimsical, others deadly serious; some have even taught us something about ourselves. For Sherlock Holmes is both us, and a super-hero, armed not with greater-than-human powers, but with wits, experience, a small community of dependable friends, and the occasional singlestick or riding crop. Like the artist-scientist, Holmes takes a mass of cold, unrelated, and inert fact, shapes it between his narrow, nicotine-stained hands, and then electrifies it—and us—with a bolt of inspiration.

Come to think of it, perhaps we should envision him, not as an archetype, but as a golem, a mud figure brought to life by human need.

* * *

The Crooked Man by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch held his badge up to the man in the gray uniform at the guardhouse door and said nothing. He was expected.

“You know which one it is?” the guard asked.
“I’ll find it,” Bosch said.
The guardrail opened and Bosch drove on through.
“Going to be hard to miss,” said his partner, Jerry Edgar.
Bosch proceeded past estates that sprawled across the southern ridge of

the Santa Monica Mountains. Vast green lawns that had never accepted a weed because they didn’t have to. He had never been in the Doheny Estates but the opulence was even more than he expected. Up here even the guesthouses had guesthouses. They passed one estate with a garage that had a row of eight doors for the owner’s car collection.

They knew only the basics about the call out. A man—a studio man— was dead and a wife—a much younger wife—was on the premises.

Soon they came to a house where there were three patrol cars parked outside the driveway entrance. In front of them was a van from the coroner’s office and in front of that was a car that looked out of place on the street and not the driveway. It was a long, sleek Mercedes coupe the color of onyx. Bosch’s battered black Ford looked like a mule next to a stallion.

Edgar noticed the incongruity as well and came up with an explanation. “My guess, Harry? She’s already lawyered up.”
Bosch nodded.
“That will be just perfect.”

In the Company of Sherlock Holmes publishes November 11. You can pre-order a copy from:

Poisoned Pen Books (signed by Laurie King, Les Klinger, and others)

IndieBound

Barnes & Noble/ Nook

Amazon/ Kindle